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Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Green Lantern: First Flight (**1/2)

GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT

Before Hal Dies, He'll See The Ring

If I were 12 years old, I would have loved this. Green Lantern: First Flight wastes no time in whipping through the origin story of how test pilot Hal Jordan received a Power Ring from the dying Green Lantern Abin Sur before launching him into space to uncover a galactic conspiracy. The characters are a who's who of Green Lantern lore, most of which I learned about reading DC Comics' Who's Who: Sinestro, Kilowog, Tomar Re, Arisia, Ch'p, Ganthet, Appa Ali Apsa, Kanjar Ro, the Weaponers of Qward. The voice acting is the same basic sleepy-monotone style pioneered by the Batman animated series in the early 90's. Big name talent like Victor Garber, Tricia Helfer, and Kurtwood Smith deliver their lines as if underwater. One of the big problems in First Flight is a lack of imagination, especially for a cartoon where budget isn't an issue and anything and everything could be animated. The Green Lanterns' powers allow their rings to create anything they can imagine. All Green Lanterns can ever seem to conjure up with their imaginations are energy beams, clamps, winches, and force fields. I'd have loved a giant green boxing glove, at least.Having said that, the stunt Jordan pulled with the two moons, literally, was pretty cool. First Flight is okay overall, a notch below last year's Justice League: The New Frontier. It's a decent place holder for when Ryan Reynolds dons the green suit as the live action ring jockey in a couple of years.

9 comments:

I really feel that these DC Direct to DVD movies should be much better than they have been. The New Frontier was great, but Wonder Woman, Gotham Knight, and Superman Doomsday were all disappointing. First Flight was the second best of the lot, but it was only so-so. I hope Superman/Batman Public Enemies lives up to the potential inherent in the idea of adapting the finest offerings from DC Comics into animated movies. If nothing else, it will be cool to have the Kevin Conroy/Tim Daly/Clancy Brown voice cast back and joined by Allison Mack as Power Girl, LeVar Burton as Black Lightning and Michael Dorn as Black Manta (what, they couldn't get Avery Brooks to play Black Atom, or Zoe Saldana to play Black Canary?). It's certainly fun playing Batman Arkham Asylum with the voice cast from Batman the Animated Series.